WILCO GET BACK TO THEIR ROOTS
The 24-song set of refined country rock is unexpected and welcome
Wilco’s first gesture back in the Nineties was to leave behind the sound of founder Jeff Tweedy’s first band, Midwestern alt-country icons Uncle Tupelo. Now, 27 years down the road, they’ve detoured back to the roots they never wanted, with a double LP of gorgeous rusticity. Recorded in empathetic live takes, the detail and tex
Cruel Country ture of the music are sublime. “All you’ve got to do is sing in the choir,” Tweedy sings on the title track, a lilting waltz. But if songs like “Hints” and “Tired of Taking It Out on You” are the definition of refined pastoral comfort, there’s plenty of darkness edging in, too. Tweedy converses with death (“A Lifetime to Find”) and evokes American immigration paranoia on “I Am My Mother.” He closes the journey with the somber “Plains,” about freedom and boredom, apathy and absence, always aware that the scariest wideopen space of all is the one inside your mind.